The Healer - a 1935 stone lithograph movie poster
The Healer, Monogram Pictures, Tooker Litho Co. New York, US 1-sheet, stone lithograph, 1935, 27 x 41 inches.
Stone lithograph posters have a certain warmth and charm, especially those from early twentieth century printers in Europe, the Americas (North and South) and Australia. A good example is the 1-sheet poster for the 1935 Monogram Pictures release The Healer. According to the auction sale site from which the above image was obtained, the original 67 minute, black and white film is a romantic love triangle melodrama telling the story of Reginald Barker (Hershenson 2020). It was based on the novel by Robert Herrick (Herrick 1911). Barker is an idealistic young doctor who runs a sanitarium for polio victims. He gets involved with a rich young woman and, as a result, takes his mind off work and the girl who truly loves him. The film stars Ralph Bellamy, Karen Morley, Mickey Rooney, Judith Allen and Robert McWade (IMDb 2020, Wikipedia 2020).
The poster features the head of actress Karen Morley, looking down towards Ralph Bellamy carrying the young, invalided Mickey Rooney. In the upper background a bush fire blazes away, whilst the lower section of solid black contains large, hand-drawn, yellow and blue text. It is a classic American movie poster design of the 1930s, highlighting the main stars and, to a lesser extent, related events. In this particular instance, the poster is distinguished by the artistic quality of the stone lithograph process - a combination of the skill of the artist who did the original drawing on stone and the colour separations, and the printer who carried out the precisely registered (i.e. aligned) application of the inks on paper. The warmth referred to above is seen not only in the colour of the inks which dominate this poster - the orange, light red, pale green and yellow - but also in the texture of the print, which is a direct result of the stone lithograph printing process. The colour is vibrant and edges are not hard, but soft and painterly.
The stone lithograph poster is often in stark contrast to the equivalent photographic based, and flatter image reproduction resulting from the offset lithograph process. The latter was most commonly in use at that time, in America at least, for by the 1930s stone lithography had become largely uneconomic as a result of the rising per unit cost. It was primarily a manual process and had a limited production capacity before the image on the plate - a polished limestone or metallic zinc - deteriorated. With the substantially automated offset lithography process the number of possible prints was almost limitless, running into the thousands. As it result, it became the preferred method of poster production as the Hollywood-based film industry expanded, along with the number of cinemas around the country and in foreign markets demanding promotional product.
Photolithography is distinguished by small dots of colour combining to form an image, whilst stone lithography utilises a speckled blending of coloured inks, as in a work of art in watercour or oil, to create the image. It possesses a depth and texture which the photolithography does not. The screenprint method, which was limited to the production of only a few hundred copies, is likewise painterly and distinguished by large blocks of colour. It was not generally used in the mass production of movie posters and related ephemera such as lobby cards.
The printer of The Healer was Joseph H. Tooker Litho Company of New York, one of the top three movie poster producers in America during the 1930s. The other two were Continental Litho Company and Morgan Litho Company, both of Cleveland, Ohio. A second stone lithograph poster of The Healer is also known - in this case, an Australian daybill in the form of a long, thin poster, smaller in overall size than the US 1-sheet. Like the American poster, the dominant figures are Morley and Bellamy, with Rooney given third billing. The quality of the drawing on stone is decidedly inferior, as was often the case with Australian stone lithograph movie posters through to the 1960s, though those from the Richardson Studio were generally an exception.
The stone lithograph poster is often in stark contrast to the equivalent photographic based, and flatter image reproduction resulting from the offset lithograph process. The latter was most commonly in use at that time, in America at least, for by the 1930s stone lithography had become largely uneconomic as a result of the rising per unit cost. It was primarily a manual process and had a limited production capacity before the image on the plate - a polished limestone or metallic zinc - deteriorated. With the substantially automated offset lithography process the number of possible prints was almost limitless, running into the thousands. As it result, it became the preferred method of poster production as the Hollywood-based film industry expanded, along with the number of cinemas around the country and in foreign markets demanding promotional product.
The Healer, Monogram Pictures, 1935, lobby cards (2), offset lithograph, 11 x 14 inches.
Photolithography is distinguished by small dots of colour combining to form an image, whilst stone lithography utilises a speckled blending of coloured inks, as in a work of art in watercour or oil, to create the image. It possesses a depth and texture which the photolithography does not. The screenprint method, which was limited to the production of only a few hundred copies, is likewise painterly and distinguished by large blocks of colour. It was not generally used in the mass production of movie posters and related ephemera such as lobby cards.
The printer of The Healer was Joseph H. Tooker Litho Company of New York, one of the top three movie poster producers in America during the 1930s. The other two were Continental Litho Company and Morgan Litho Company, both of Cleveland, Ohio. A second stone lithograph poster of The Healer is also known - in this case, an Australian daybill in the form of a long, thin poster, smaller in overall size than the US 1-sheet. Like the American poster, the dominant figures are Morley and Bellamy, with Rooney given third billing. The quality of the drawing on stone is decidedly inferior, as was often the case with Australian stone lithograph movie posters through to the 1960s, though those from the Richardson Studio were generally an exception.
The Healer, Australian long daybill, circa 1935, stone lithograph, 15 x 40 inches. Artist: Julian Rose.
These two items are rare posters for a rare movie title, largely due to the fact that the film was re-titled Little Pal
shortly after the initial release. This was done in order to bank on
the growing popularity of Mickey Rooney, who was 15 years old at the time of filming. A second stone lithograph 1-sheet poster was produced for the re-release. An offset lithograph insert, with photographs of the main players, is also known, along with a set of 8 coloured lobby cards. A number of untitled sepia and black and white stills are also known, most likely associated with both the initial and later release.
Little Pal, Monogram Pictures, stone lithograph, [1936], 27 x 41 inches.
Little Pal, offset lithograph, [1936], insert, 14 x 36 inches.
Little Pal, formerly 'The Healer', Monogram Pictures, [1936], lobby cards, offset lithograph, 11 x 14 inches. This is one of a set of 8.
The full, re-titled movie is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zowhudsPwNc. In this instance it is a low quality, un-restored copy, revealing a rather quaint B-grade film, centred around the three main characters and the simple story of love between Morley and Bellamy, and the rehabilitation of Rooney's character from the effects of polio.
Little Pal, formerly 'The Healer', Monogram Pictures, [1936]. Source: YouTube. Duration: 1.07.01.
In the film, Morley is rather wooden and tentative, Bellamy competent and stoic, whilst Rooney is lively, vibrant and the actor the world would come to know and love through an extensive acting career extending over some fifty years. Morley achieved much during her life after leaving film, due to strongly held Left-wing political beliefs and related activism in support of film industry employees and unions. She also worked in later life in television.
References
Herrick, Robert, The Healer, Macmillan, New York, 1911, 455p.
Hershenson, Bruce, emovieposters.com [website], 8 April 2020. Available URL: http://www.emovieposter.com/.
IMDb, The Healer, Internet Movie Database [website], 2020. Available URL: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0026637/.
Hershenson, Bruce, emovieposters.com [website], 8 April 2020. Available URL: http://www.emovieposter.com/.
IMDb, The Healer, Internet Movie Database [website], 2020. Available URL: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0026637/.
The Healer [webpage], Wikipedia, 2020. Available URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Healer_(film).
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